Transcript: Whitney Houston: 'I'm a Person Who Has Life'

Whitney Houston: 'I Partied'

Sawyer: But tell me about you that night. First of all, had you been
partying? Is that part of it?

Houston:
Was I, I can't say it was like an everyday kind of thing, yeah. I hung out
with some friends and I partied.

Sawyer: Did it seem to ease the pressure? Did it quiet the voice in your
head?

Houston:
Seemed.

Sawyer: Seemed?

Houston:
Seemed, yes.

Photos taken that night showed Houston, skin and bones, even though the tape of the show that was broadcast on TV showed her fattened up. Pounds had been added to her frame.

Sawyer: Did you see that they took electronic devices and changed it for
the air?

Houston:
They did it for me and a few other people.

Sawyer:
Other people, too? Other people, yes? Because that sparked that
whole thing, when the headlines were saying "Whitney is dying."

Houston: No. "Whitney was dead."

Sawyer: How scared did you get?

Houston: Scared. When they said that I had died, I did, I changed my mind. I
changed my mind. Yep. Because I didn't want to look like the rest of
them. I didn't want to be like them. It frightened me. I don't ever want
to be in the realm of, where I'm caught in a mold and I can't get out.
Never. That's over. I'm beyond it.

Sawyer: Do you think you came close?

Sawyer:
I think as close as anybody, I think, can get. I know folks who have come
closer. But that's as close as I want to be. That's as close as I think
it gets.

Sawyer: And how sure are you that those bad days you talked about are behind
you?

Sawyer:
I know that I'm on the right path, because I'm back home where I started,
in here. I can't tell you it's all going to be perfect, Diane, and I can't
say ...

Sawyer: Yeah, because every, everybody says it's day by day, day by day.

Houston:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sawyer: But now do you say, not at all, or do you say, I can . . .

Houston:
Well, I'm not going to tell you that. I can tell you that I am not self-
destructive. I'm not a person who wants to die. I'm a person who has
life, who wants to live. And I always have. And I wouldn't mistake it for
anything else other than that.

Sawyer: Are you strong enough to do that now?

Houston:
I think so.

Sawyer: And not let it get you?

Houston:
Mm hmm. Yes, I am.

Sawyer: 'Cause most people . . .

Houston:
I pray every day that I am. I'm not the strongest every day, but I'm not the
weakest, either. And I won't break. And I won't break.

Sawyer:
Is today a good day?

Houston:
Today's a great day. It's a blessed day.

Sawyer: No temptations today?

Houston:
I have a few temptations, but it's not about drugs, it's about kicking ass,
but, you know.

Sawyer: Mine?

Houston: No. This is a blessing.

ABC News asked how hard would it be for her to change her life
when drug use is so close in those she loves -- not only her husband but her two brothers have each been caught with cocaine and marijuana. Even her cousin Dionne Warwick was stopped at an airport with marijuana.

Sawyer: Your cousin

Houston:
Jesus.

Sawyer: Your cousin did.

Houston: Very isolated incidents. One had nothing to do with the other.

Houston:
I talk to people who have been through rehab, and a lot of people that come
through it, come through it with God. They tell you in a rehab that 90
percent of you are gonna return. That's not nice. That's not nice. So
what I did is I looked in my soul to see what was missing.

Sawyer: So for the people out there who say we want to help, we want to help
build a barrier between her and drugs, what do you want them to pray for?